KINGSTON UNIVERSITY LONDON “The Role of Institutional Entrepreneurs in Shaping the Renewable Energy Subfield in the UK during the Period 1986-2016” By Leigh St Aubyn CHAMPAGNIE Submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements of Kingston University for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy SPONSORS: YTL CORPORATION and KINGSTON UNIVERSITY SBRC FEBRUARY 2020 i ABSTRACT Historically, energy systems have contributed significantly to global carbon emissions. To address this concern, countries such as the United Kingdom (UK) have embraced technologies such as renewable energy to try and reduce their carbon footprints. In the case of the UK, this led to the renewable energy subfield becoming partially institutionalised under the enabling role of actors, which suggests that this type of institutional change warrants being examined through the lens of institutional entrepreneurship theory. This doctoral thesis rises to the challenge by conducting institutional entrepreneurship research to investigate the institutionalisation of the renewable energy subfield in the UK during the period 1986-2016. Such an investigation is of social significance because the institutionalisation of the renewable energy subfield is likely to contribute to deinstitutionalising polluting technologies such as fossil fuels, thus contributing to the UK’s transition to a low carbon economy. The thesis is an exploratory, qualitative case study that combines thirty-nine semi-structured interviews of respondents connected to the field of energy provision in the UK with an analysis of archival documents. It finds that multiple actors practised as institutional entrepreneurs during the period, these being the state and its various agencies; renewable energy practitioners/activists; incumbent energy practitioners; the European Union and the United Nations. These institutional entrepreneurs played significant roles in shaping the renewable energy subfield by either creating new institutions and/or reforming existing ones, however, this had little impact on reshaping the field of energy provision in which it is embedded. This thesis makes three major contributions to knowledge: (1) it proposes the construct of a subfield; (2) it shows that institutionalised structural myths may serve as enabling conditions; and (3) it offers partial institutionalisation as a novel account of the state of the renewable energy subfield in the UK. The idea of an organisational subfield contributes to knowledge by showing that this sub-community has its own unique features. For example, a subfield is embedded within an overarching organisational field, consequently, it is constrained by factors such as subordinacy and competing institutional logics. The thesis also shows that institutionalised structural myths, such as energy policy (un)certainty, (de)motivated some actors from practising as institutional entrepreneurs during the study period. The partial institutionalisation of the renewable energy subfield in the UK has caused it to be relatively vulnerable to any major environmental shocks it may face and less widely accepted than the fossil fuels subfield. Being partially institutionalised also has three major implications: (1) business-as-usual for energy provision in the UK; (2) renewable energy deployment being patchy, and (3) most renewable energy practitioners remaining constrained as embedded agents. The conclusions of this thesis inform and deepen understanding of the role of actors’ agency in facilitating or hindering the institutionalisation of renewable energy in the UK. Keywords: Organisation field; renewable energy; renewable energy subfield; institutions; institutional entrepreneurs; institutional entrepreneurship; institutional change; partial institutionalisation; partial legitimacy. Contents ABSTRACT ......................................................................................................... ii DECLARATION STATEMENT......................................................................... ix DEDICATION .................................................................................................... xi ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ................................................................................ xii LIST OF FIGURES ........................................................................................... xiii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................ xiii LIST OF ABBREVIATIONS ............................................................................ xiv CHAPTER ONE ...................................................................................................... 0 INTRODUCTION ................................................................................................... 0 1. INTRODUCTION ............................................................................................ 1 1.1 RATIONALE AND SIGNIFICANCE OF THE THESIS ................................ 2 1.2 PROBLEM STATEMENT: THE INSTITUTIONALISED CONSTRAINT OF ENERGY PROVISION IN THE UK .................................................................... 6 1.3 AIM, RESEARCH QUESTIONS AND OBJECTIVES OF THE THESIS ...... 7 1.4 OVERVIEW OF RESEARCH METHODOLOGY ......................................... 9 1.5 SCOPE AND DELIMITATION ....................................................................10 1.6 STRUCTURE OF THE THESIS ...................................................................12 1.7 SUMMARY ..................................................................................................14 CHAPTER TWO ....................................................................................................16 LITERATURE REVIEW ........................................................................................16 2.1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................17 2.2 SEARCH STRATEGY ..................................................................................17 2.3 THEORETICAL ORIENTATION ................................................................20 2.3.1 Institutional Entrepreneurship: Theoretical Origin and Core Principles 20 2.3.2 Summary ...........................................................................................34 2.4 EMPIRICAL STUDIES ON INSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP IN THE RENEWABLE ENERGY SUBFIELD ........................................................35 2.4.1 Organisational Fields: Fertile Grounds for Institutional Entrepreneurship 35 2.4.3 Enabling Conditions for Institutional Entrepreneurship ...........................47 2.4.4 The Deployment of Intervention Strategies in Organisational Fields ..48 2.4.5 The Role of Agency, Power and Interests in Institutional Change and Inertia 50 2.4.6 Institutions as Products of Institutional Entrepreneurship ...................54 2.4.7 Gaining Legitimacy in the Renewable Energy subfield ......................57 2.4.8 Summary ...........................................................................................60 2.5 GAPS IN KNOWLEDGE..............................................................................61 2.6 TOWARD A THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK FOR EXAMINING INSTITUTIONAL ENTREPRENEURSHIP .......................................................63 2.7 SUMMARY ..................................................................................................66 CHAPTER THREE ................................................................................................68 METHODOLOGY .................................................................................................68 3.1 INTRODUCTION .........................................................................................69 3.2 PHILOSOPHICAL ASSUMPTIONS ............................................................69 3.2.1 Epistemology .....................................................................................70 3.2.2 Ontology............................................................................................71 3.2. 3 Axiology............................................................................................72 3.3 COLLECTING THE EVIDENCE .................................................................73 3.3.1 Research Approaches .........................................................................73 3.3.2 Research Design ................................................................................74 3. 4 RESEARCH STRATEGY ............................................................................75 3.5 RESEARCH METHODS ..............................................................................77 3.5.1 The Analysis of Public Documents ....................................................77 3.5.2 Interviews ..........................................................................................80 3.6 CRITICISM OF TAKING A MULTI-METHODS APPROACH ...................89 3.7 TIME HORIZON ..........................................................................................89 3.8 ANALYSING THE EVIDENCE ...................................................................90 3.9 RESEARCH INTEGRITY ............................................................................98 3.9.1 Dealing with Biases ...........................................................................98 3.9.2 Trustworthiness .................................................................................99 Transferability ................................................................................................